


Anatomical Venus

by writingmonsters



Category: The Alienist (TV)
Genre: BDSM, BDSM Scene, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Because Laszlo Doesn't Know His Limits, Consensual, Dom!John, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I Tried My Best But I Don't Know Much, John is in Way Over His Head, Laszlo Has a Lot of Baggage, Laszlo Has an Idea, M/M, Panic Attacks, Spanking, Sub!Laszlo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-05-31 11:55:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15118874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/writingmonsters
Summary: “To understand my patient’s experience I had thought to replicate it for myself.” And here Laszlo finally does look at him – just a glance and then his dark eyes slide away again, but John spots the uncertainty there. “As an experiment. A trial.”“To replicate it.” This cannot be going where John thinks it is.“Yes.”“The act of being dominated and disciplined to receive sexual gratification.”“Perhaps.” Laszlo fidgets with the cuff of his sleeve.“As an experiment.” John half-giggles, the hysteria mounting in his chest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Endless gratitude to misanthropiclycanthrope for encouraging this travesty. God help me, and God help these idiots.

There is almost always something occupying Laszlo Kreizler’s mind.

Two thirds of his attention might be devoted to his conversational partner, usually John, but that final third always manages to reserve itself for puzzling over unsolved problems and private questions. The never-ending work at the Institute, new theories and inspirations and bits of ideas forever turning over and coalescing into coherent wholes mid-discussion.

Today, though, there is more to it than just picking apart another mental tangle across from John in the parlor of his East 17th Street quarters. Laszlo swills his coffee in the china cup, watching the dark brew whirling and eddying, and never quite manages to bring himself to say whatever it is that’s on his mind.

Cyrus worries away at the piano for a quarter of an hour and John fills the time with idle conversation, certain that Laszlo must only hear one word in every three. All the while, their coffee grows colder and the little, puzzled knot between Kreizler’s eyebrows grows deeper until finally, the man blinks himself sharply from his fugue and lifts his voice just loud enough to be heard above the melody of the _nocturne_ on the piano.

“Thank you, Cyrus. That will be all.”

It is impressive, really, that Cyrus does not stumble over a single note as he lets the music fade neatly into silence, as though it were meant to end mid-flourish. The big valet rises from the bench, closes the lid over the ivory keys, and takes his leave with a silent incline of his head.

Laszlo watches him with keen jasper eyes over the rim of his coffee cup, waiting until the footsteps have faded from the hallway beyond the parlor to say to him – without once looking in John’s direction – “you have frequented a number of brothels, John. Perhaps you are familiar with this concept I would like to put to you?”

John chokes on the last mouthful of his coffee. Spluttering, he casts about for something to soak up the worst of the mess, dabbing at the spray of lukewarm brew now dribbling off his lapels. “ _Laszlo_ ,” there is a note of warning in his tone, the eyes that roll around to meet Kreizler’s across the way gone just a bit wild at the edges.

Because Laszlo is – much to John’s never-ending fondness and consternation – _Laszlo_ , he ignores John’s reaction, setting aside his own coffee cup and shuffling himself to perch on the edge of the plush armchair, the malformed arm cradled to his side when he leans in close. His eyes are steady, fairly glowing with a freshly ignited fever-brilliance. “A patient,” he tells John in his rapid, mellifluous voice “has related to me some… experiences. Frequently, he visits the house of a certain madame to engage in activities relating to the shifting of power dynamics and disciplinary actions.”

Slipping a finger into the too-tight band of his collar, John frowns and considers this, his brow starting to prickle with sweat. He is not unfamiliar with the particular nature of these brothels, though he has never had occasion to set foot inside one himself. “These activities,” he prompts Laszlo “they are of a sexual nature?”

The warm flush that rises to Laszlo’s boyish cheeks is enough of an answer. Kreizler suddenly seems to find the pattern of the Turkish rugs beneath their feet infinitely fascinating, the column of his throat spasming as he struggles to draw up his words.

“Sexual, yes.” It seems a struggle for Laszlo to manage the word – unsurprising, and endearing, to John who has known the doctor so well and so long. “He derives sexual gratification from submitting to a dominant personality, from engaging in sadomasochistic activity and from being disciplined.”

John feels like he is strangling. “I’m familiar with the idea.” The air in the plush East Street study is suddenly far too warm, gone heavy and humid with the weight of each word that falls from Laszlo’s lips. “But, Laszlo, why are you telling me this?”

The doctor scratches at the side of his nose, still not quite looking John full in the face. “I am trying to better understand this patient’s psyche.” Laszlo shifts himself in the armchair, and John would think he were squirming if the man did not actually seem capable of such a thing. “The sensation of bliss he describes that requires him to return again and again to these experiences – why he seeks submission and discipline.”

“What does any of this have to do with me?” John almost laughs, feels his face drawn into some horrible rictus of puzzled amusement. Disbelief.

“To understand my patient’s experience I had thought to replicate it for myself.” And here Laszlo finally does look at him – just a glance and then his dark eyes slide away again, but John spots the uncertainty there. “As an experiment. A trial.”

“To replicate it.” This cannot be going where John thinks it is.

“Yes.”

“The act of being dominated and disciplined to receive sexual gratification.”

“Perhaps.” Laszlo fidgets with the cuff of his sleeve.

“As an experiment.” John half-giggles, the hysteria mounting in his chest.

“I…” The words are choked off, nerves tightening Laszlo’s cupid’s bow mouth into a thin, unhappy line. He clears his throat.

John has a terrible realization. “And – for the love of God, Laszlo – is that why you asked me about the brothels? You want a _recommendation_?” He is halfway out of his seat, head spinning; flushed and oxygen-starved and Laszlo’s protestations are barely coherent beyond the blood pounding in his ears. “Jesus…”

“John—” Still hunched in the armchair, Laszlo stares up at his friend with a keen look of anxiety, his eyes blown wide with shock. “John, this is all…” And he half-rises to meet the illustrator, baffled and distraught and stumbling over his words in that lilting, roundabout way. “I mean to ask – will _you_ help me?”

He might have just struck the man over the head with the copy of Havelock Ellis’s _Sexual Inversion_ on the end table and produced the same effect. For a moment – just a blink – John is certain that time has come to a standstill, that his heart has stopped beating and his lungs cease to draw breath and the clock no longer ticks away the seconds on the mantelpiece because he _cannot be hearing_ what he thinks he heard.

And then Laszlo, with his rounded shoulder drawn up around his ears and his smooth face more unnerved, more fragile than John has ever seen him, presses softly. “It is just an experiment. Please. There is no one else I can trust with this.”

And John cannot say no.

He never can. Not to Laszlo.

And Laszlo’s trust… The soft desperation in his voice as he’d made the request. It’s enough to leave John reeling.

“All right,” he capitulates, sinking back into the armchair. He sits on the very edge of the cushion, perched like he might still bolt at any moment. “All right, Laszlo, I’ll help you – but are you sure you realize what this entails?”

In response, the doctor twitches a set of notes off the end table, carefully bound and written out in his clean, tight hand. The look he gives John, all dark frowning eyebrows, just this side of disparaging. He hands the notes over, lets John look them over for a moment – a carefully redacted version of Laszlo’s file on the patient in question – and says coolly “I may not have your breadth of experience, John, but I am not _entirely_ uneducated, thank you.”

John’s eyes, skimming the pages, snag on a few choice words here and there. The starched collar of his shirt grows tighter and tighter around his throat, beads of sweat caught at the nape of his neck. He shifts in the chair, all too aware of an uncomfortable weight in his belly. A list on the third page, which Kreizler reaches out to tap with his forefinger.

“These are specific elements that came up repeatedly in the patient’s descriptions of his enactments,” Laszlo explains, his dark eyes serious. Academic. “For purposes of the experiment, I thought we should endeavor to replicate the motifs as closely as possible. Though,” he allows himself a rueful smile at the length of the bullet-pointed list. “Perhaps not all of them at once.”

“No,” John agrees hoarsely. “Maybe not.”

Laszlo rises smartly to his feet, smoothing the front of his waistcoat. “You are not otherwise engaged this evening, Moore?”

“So soon?” John wrenches his eyes away from the damning papers and their descriptions, staring up at the doctor. “Laszlo…”

“Say six-thirty? I’ve already arranged for Cyrus and Stevie to be elsewhere. We can do dinner at Delmonico’s after.”

And John finds himself agreeing – again – stumbling stupidly out into the foyer and fumbling his way back onto the street, flabbergasted. Utterly unable to wrap his mind around what they are doing – what he has agreed to – and worse, the sinking knowledge that Laszlo very clearly has no frame of reference as to the repercussions of what he has asked.

John scuffs at the cobblestones with the toe of his boot as he walks, stuffing the patient files into the pocket of his suit coat where they burn. Incriminating. “Delmonico’s,” he sneers to the crumpled flutter of newspaper that flattens beneath his foot. “If the man had half an inkling what he’s asking – he won’t be in a fit state to go _anywhere_ , much less _dinner at Delmonico’s_.” John shakes his head despairingly at the grey heavens that ignore his plight. “Sweet Christ.”

Somehow, he makes it home, though he can’t imagine how, he is so wrapped up in the maelstrom of thoughts circling Laszlo and his strange, unfathomable request. But he dodges the hansoms and pedestrians and carts on instinct and arrives on the doorstep unscathed, fumbles out a few words to Harriet when she answers the door, and stumbles in a haze up the stairs.

“John, you look peaked! Is everything all right?”

He manages his excuses, garbles out reassurances to his grandmother as he skirts past her in the corridor and it surely does nothing to improve upon her impression of him, her worries over his gambling habit and his drinking – which he has overcome, damn it!

But, Christ, his hands tremble terribly when he shuts the bedroom door and finds himself securing the lock. He shrugs off his jacket, leaves it crumpled in a heap. There is nothing he wants more than a stiff drink to make reality slide down a little easier.

 _Laszlo_ , he thinks as he sinks down onto the bed. _Laszlo, what have you roped me into_?

Slipping the patient notes from his inner pocket, John swallows hard and finds the knot of his cravat digging too tightly into his windpipe. He slips his forefinger into the silk, loosening it from around his throat as he lets his eyes fall to Laszlo’s list of – how had he phrased it? Elements. Motifs. Academic language.

Hunched on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, John digs into the pages; the list of motifs, Laszlo’s careful hand transcribing the patient’s recounting of encounters with madams who gave orders, punishments meted out, sexual release and tendernesses carefully granted on the basis of good behavior, of his euphoria on the heels of this play of pain and pleasure.

He has heard of such things. Has slept with women who have then gone to ply their trade in these affairs with other customers at some of the city brothels. But to see it all written so plainly, in such vivid detail – to read Laszlo’s musings and carefully constructed insights…

_In the last session the patient describes how he is ordered to undress before the eyes of the madame and to stand completely still and naked for some time while seemingly ignored – the madame appears to attend to her toilette in the mirror and the patient becomes increasingly aroused by this inattention._

John settles one hand against the pulse of his heart. Sweat bleeds through the thin material of his shirt. This is uncharted territory and these are dangerous seas, but he imagines Laszlo undressed; that graceful, sturdy figure and the soft expanse of skin…

If John asked – if John demanded it of him – how would he stand there? Spine straight as steel with his chin lifted and the damnable pride bright in those burnished eyes, or… would the shoulders curl, would he stare at the floor before he risked looking John in the eye, caught in such a vulnerable state? Would he flush?

_Despite – or in fact, because of – the knowledge that he will be punished for disobedience, the patient moves to attend to this arousal and finds himself on the receiving end of the madame’s ire. He describes to me the thrill of knowing he will be punished for his indiscretion, of how his skin sings when struck with the paddle._

Laszlo had asked.

An agony – John groans, a low drawn-out sound deep in his throat. The thought of Laszlo bent over the bed, the softness of his skin pinked and stinging. Of it being John to wield such control over him, bringing him undone. What a weight. What a wonder. And the confines of John’s trousers are too tight and he shouldn’t be so affected by the notion of Laszlo and his request, his experiment. But the things Laszlo has asked of him…

 _Clothespins would be applied to sensitive areas of the body… Often, the patient is blindfolded or bound to heighten his sensations and sense of helplessness. He describes to me the euphoria sustained in these situations_ …

John comes undone.

He lies on his back in the bed, sweaty and panting and spent, thoughts drifting. Laszlo. An experiment – a trial – or something more? A strange and terrible gift to have been laid in his inexpert hands. How on earth is he meant to comport himself tonight and how the hell will they come out the other side of this misadventure?

It’s a double-edged sword that John Moore has been handed, that much he is certain.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck. It's fucking done. Please kill me. I'm never writing smut again. *throws up hands in despair*  
> Sorry this took so long folks. I have no excuse. Thank misanthropiclycanthrope, nookienostradamus, and belaluxe (on Tumblr) for the fact that it got finished.

The appointed hour cannot come fast enough, and at the same time John dreads its arrival. When the clock strikes six he drags his hands down his face, dons his jacket, and stuff Laszlo’s papers into the innermost pocket as he sets out to face the New York streets once more.

It is a twenty-minute walk along 5th Avenue and then down 17th Street, and John makes the journey with single-minded purpose, his shoulders tight and his chin tucked into his chest. He takes the time to consider, to gather himself together with the cool autumn air on his face. What is he _doing_? What on earth has he agreed to?

This is madness is what it is. He’s lost his mind.

And John knows he could call it off – if he were a braver man, a stronger man, he could tell Laszlo exactly how much nonsense this is and that he won’t have any part in it. But Laszlo has always been a tender spot of his. For all of Laszlo Kreizler’s big ideas and arrogant brilliance, for all his incredibly vast knowledge of the human psyche, Laszlo is remarkably obtuse when it comes to his own emotions, his own frailties. Too many times John has watched him push and prod and bully himself through his own wounds and weaknesses to prove a point. Such a stupid, pig-headed man. It raises something protective in John, something fond and unshakeable.

Laszlo had asked, had come trustingly to him.

But John is no fool. If it is not him, he knows that Laszlo will not simply set aside the line of inquiry and lay it to rest. And there is no one but John who knows Laszlo, really, who will care for him and see it through properly – inexperienced though his hand may be.

It’s a terrible idea.

John hates it. But it has to be him.

He straightens the knot in his tie, tugs down the lapels of his coat as he mounts the steps to 283 East 17th Street. Laszlo has asked him to do this, has _requested_ discipline and domination from John’s hand. There is a little part of him that thrills at the idea.

On the doorstep, he feels completely apart from himself – broken into two halves. There is John, whose hands shake, who knows this is all going to come tumbling down around their ears, who _loves_ Laszlo for all his shards and broken edges and fears the shatterpoints he may find. And there is Moore, who holds his spine like steel, who taps his foot impatiently as he waits for the bell to be answered, who knows how to take a body into his hands and shape it, play it exquisitely with passion – he can handle Laszlo Kreizler.

When the door to 283 swings open, it seems that the more settled things have become in John’s mind, the easier the role starts to sit on his shoulders, the more unsettled and disarrayed Laszlo has become in turn. His hair has fallen across his brow, curling finely at the edges, and the collar of his shirt is unbuttoned, flapping loose at his throat. He looks… manic.

Laszlo swallows hard – dark eyes darting – taking in John’s presence on the doorstep. “It’s time.” It’s almost a question, tongue darting out to wet his lips.

“So it is,” John agrees.

Where do they go from here?

All at once Laszlo shakes himself, the mask of easy coolness slipping down to shutter his nerves. “Please,” he says “forgive me. Come inside.”

As though John has not been here a thousand times before. As though he does not know every inch of Kreizler’s house as well as his own grandmother’s. And yet… the first step across the threshold is new territory for them both, the air heavy with the unspoken, shifting balance.

John sheds his coat in the foyer while Laszlo hovers, rolling his shoulders and shifting his weight, and John has never in his life seen Laszlo Kreizler look so nervous. So… skittish.

“Everything is in the study,” Laszlo says. His dark eyes shift to John and then dart away again. “I was not certain – _hm_ – what tools we would implement, so there is some of everything.” And he shrugs, the one shoulder rising higher than the other.

The study. Not in the bedroom.

Laszlo does not admit that the idea of the bedroom as their stage had filled him with dread, had felt too intimate – too much a dangerous transgression. It is easier, in the study, to keep a clear head, to remind himself that this is no more than a psychological experiment.

Pausing, framed in the entrance to the expansive study, John seems to consider something for a long moment. “I hardly know where to begin,” he admits with a wry, chagrined smile.

"Nor do I,” Laszlo confides, softening. Some of the tightness eases from his shoulders, relaxes his spine. “Perhaps, we just _begin_?”

“Perhaps,” John hums.

He turns, stepping into the familiar warmth of the private study. True to Laszlo’s word, the surface of the massive mahogany desk is laid with a whole variety of accoutrements; a bowl of ice, clothespins, a riding crop, several silk scarves, various implements and items for inflicting the pain and pleasure so described by Laszlo’s patient. No doubt, Kreizler had combed through the notes in his file for inspiration, searching for mentions of the specific tools of the trade worth having on hand for the moment.

What a thought that is.

John traces the carved edges of the desk, trails his fingers slowly over the array. “Just how far are you willing to take this experiment of yours, Laszlo?” He keeps his back to the alienist, watches from the corner of his eye as Laszlo rocks on his heels, rolls his shoulders.

There is a brief pause as Laszlo considers, his eyes roving around the study – skimming across the spines of psychological texts, skirting over the furniture – and seeing nothing. “I am willing to go as far as is necessary,” he proclaims at last, weighing his words, “to reach the desired conclusions.” Euphoria.

“No.” John turns from the desk, and this is not the handsome yet indolent John Moore that Laszlo is so familiar with; the charming bachelor, the society man. There is steel in his spine, a cool grace and confidence that smooths the man’s flustered energy to stillness. “No, you’ve asked me to take charge, Laszlo, and we go only as far as I decide – no further.”

“ _John_.”

“You _asked_ , Laszlo.” John fiddles open the buttons of his shirt cuff, rolling the crisp white sleeve up his elbow. “You asked to give control over to me for this. And these are my terms. Only as far as I deem fit. If it’s too much, we stop; your conclusions be damned.” The gaze he levels at Laszlo as he unbuttons the other cuff is dark and unfathomable as the Hudson. Laszlo feels the weight of it in the very pit of his stomach. “Can you accept that?”

“I…” John catches the jerk of Laszlo’s throat as he swallows around a protest. “Yes. I accept your terms.”

“Good.”

Standing in the middle of his study, Laszlo is unmoored – entirely adrift. He shifts his weight on his slippered feet, hands fluttering loosely at his sides; wanting to reach for something, to grasp hold of anything now that this is real. This is happening. And he is certain he is pitching right off the edge, falling headlong.

John stands before him and says coolly “strip” and Laszlo tumbles like Icarus.

It is… shocking to see Laszlo Kreizler so discomposed. To have him blink – shocked and owlish – at John with something like a protest on his lips before he remembers. He has asked for this.

Laszlo steps out of his slippers, unties the sash of his housecoat and shrugs it off – lays these things neatly aside. This is no great hardship. But then he hesitates. With his one good hand he fumbles at the buttons of his shirt, works them loose slowly one by one. A clumsy, painful effort made worse by the nervous tremor of his fingers. He flushes, pink-cheeked with the shame and frustration of it when the little mother-of-pearl buttons slip from his grasp, and John is tempted to cut short the farce – to close the short distance between them and undress Laszlo carefully, gently. But this is the game they are meant to play. And so he watches.

The shirt is discarded with a halting, uncertain glance – laid over the back of the armchair along with the housecoat. Laszlo keeps his eyes on the patterns and whorls of the Persian carpet as fingers settle on the fastenings of his trousers.

“Well, go on then.” John’s urging is a sandpaper rasp in the silence, his throat dry as he drinks in the sight of Laszlo’s proud head bowed, lingers over the inches of fair and freckled skin that have been bared.

Laszlo has always been so well-contained, so tightly buttoned up and hidden away behind his inscrutable layers – he has never been one to discard his suit coat and strip down to shirtsleeves as comfortably as John does, has never bared an inch of himself he has not meant to. Not a fraction of a hair out of place. Not before…

With agonizing slowness, Laszlo frees the buttons of his trousers, bares himself completely in one smooth movement – all curving spine and grace – and straightens, the bad arm clutched close to his side. He does not quite move to cover himself, but his free hand twitches against his thigh. He does not bow his head, does not lift his chin defiantly the way John might have expected – instead he shifts on his bare feet, staring faintly somewhere into the middle distance. Self-conscious and uneasy beneath the weight of John’s steady gaze.

They had lived together, during their time at Harvard; shared a set of rooms – more in the pursuit of company than out of financial necessity. John had seen Laszlo undressed then. Rare occasions, to be sure, but he remembers the contours of the familiar, sturdy frame.

 _Exquisite_ , he almost sighs. Where the thought had come from, John could not say.

Instead, John paces a slow circle around Laszlo. Not a word. Not a sound. His heartbeat grows heavy against his ribcage, eyes roving a languid, meandering trail up and down the naked body. Long, slender legs. Proud shoulders. The solid chest and soft, slight belly with the dusting of hair leading downward. The sweet, perfect dimples in the dip of his spine.

John lays the flat of his palm against those dimples, steps in close and crowds himself against Laszlo’s back. Dipping his chin to murmur against the Alienist’s ear he feels the full-bodied shudder that runs through Laszlo’s frame when he asks “does this arouse you?”

“I… _John_.”

“I asked you a question, Laszlo.” John allows his hand to drift lower – allows his fingers to pinch. Just a bit. “Does it arouse you to be naked – to be vulnerable – and be observed?”

Laszlo’s whisper is faint. “Perhaps.”

It is enough to wring this much of a concession from the controlled, tightly-managed alienist. John hums, trailing his fingers along Laszlo’s vertebrae to feel him shiver. “Is it embarrassing, how easy it is for me to wind you up? You’re _desperate_ , Laszlo. I’ve hardly touched you – we’re only getting started.”

And then he steps away, leaves Laszlo small and bereft in the middle of the floor. And John feels a curl of unease in his belly, a sickness at the weight of the power in his hands, the unmitigated control he has been handed. Laszlo’s eyes, deep and rich and russet brown, watch him carefully as he traces his fingers over the desktop.

Laszlo has trusted him with this. It will be all right.

John trails one of the silk scarves through his fingers, considering. Can he do this? How far will they go – how far will _he_ take this? “Come here, Laszlo.”

Madness.

It’s madness.

It will ruin them.

And John _wants_. Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to ruin Laszlo – to take him and break him and build him up again with pleasure. With the euphoria he is looking for in his clinical words and human experiments.

Laszlo closes the distance between them on bare, silent feet, looking to John in askance. And John takes the length of silk – one of Laszlo’s cravats, he realizes with a start – and in one smooth movement lifts it to Kreizler’s eyes and ties it securely round the back of his skull.

“Can you see?”

“No.”

John strokes his thumb across the nape of Laszlo’s neck, feels the shiver that rolls down the column of the alienist’s spine. “Good.”

_I found your accounts of men’s vulnerabilities, in particular, interesting._

Laszlo recalls his own words – the admission dragged out of him with such discomfort. It had been one thing to listen, to imagine and absorb the words of his patients. To interpret and theorize from the safety of his armchair, in the secure solitude of his own mind without the crawling shame that writhes in his core, the awareness of John’s eyes resting heavy on his every weakness and vulnerability laid bare.

_I recognized my own weakness and it gave me pleasure._

Blindfolded, naked, Laszlo feels very vulnerable indeed – very aware of his own weaknesses. And, it sends a thrill like a galvanic shock through him to think that he almost enjoys it. Being vulnerable. At John’s mercy.

A rush of heat floods his skin, blooming beneath his cheeks, when he feels John lean in close, the brush of fine tweed and good linen against his raw, bare skin. And John – rocked by desire, by the knowledge of his control – dips down to drag his open mouth along the heated line of the pulse in Laszlo’s throat, to press and bite kisses into the juncture of soft neck and shoulder. He rumbles, low and ragged against the warm, velvet skin “tell me what you want from me, Laszlo. Beg me for it.”

He feels the way Laszlo stiffens beneath his touch, rigid and wary with hesitation and he thinks for a moment, Laszlo will ask him to stop. Will end the experiment. Say it has gone far enough. Instead, the alienist clears his throat and in a voice that catches on the syllables says “you read the patient’s testimonial I gave you.”

 _"Beg_ me for it, Laszlo.” John slips one hand around to rest on Laszlo’s belly, against the shallow rise and fall of his diaphragm. Insistent.

A pause. “Discipline me. Please.” He is taut as a piano wire beneath John’s hands – fairly vibrating with the nerves it takes to work the words out. “The way my patient described.”

John obliges, moving fast and firm – hands guiding Laszlo to bend, molding him over the edge of the desk and laying him flat against its surface. Laszlo folds with a desperate, undignified noise that drives like an arrow straight into John’s belly. The desk is high enough, large enough, that the angle lifts Laszlo onto the balls of his feet, leaves him vulnerable and exposed. And, for a moment, John considers the instruments scattered across the surface of the desk; the riding crop, the broad wooden paddle – and where did Laszlo, a man viciously against corporal punishment, even _get_ that? – as he smooths the flat of his palm over the warm dimple of Laszlo’s spine, makes shushing noises to ease the quiet, panting whimpers that struggle from the alienist’s lips.

Laszlo’s breath hitches. “J- _ohn_ …”

And John brings one warm hand, rough with artist’s calluses down on the firm, rounded swell of Laszlo’s backside. Flesh cracks against flesh. Laszlo’s spine curves, arcing backward in sharp relief with a silent gasp; his whole body flinching away from the blow.

“Count the blows.” John’s voice is thick – the air in the study suddenly oppressive. He pets a hand idly over the rising red mark, stark on Laszlo’s skin. “Each one.” _I can play your game_ , he thinks, dragging the pad of his thumb over the dimples at the base of Laszlo’s spine. _Here’s some data for your experiment, Kreizler_.

Laszlo all but vibrates beneath his palms, the alienist’s wiry muscles pulled taut and straining with the effort, sweat beading on his skin. The count comes – dragged, raw and battered from his throat. “One.”

John lands several more blows in quick succession, scattering each smack of stinging palm across buttocks and thighs to make flesh sing. The effort leaves him blowing hard, rolling his shoulders as he stands over Laszlo – pins him down.

“Two. Three. F-four.” Laszlo’s voice breaks. Quavers. “Five.”

Another strike and Laszlo rocks up onto his toes with a gasp – almost a cry – sprawled across the surface of the desk. His skin is flushed and warm beneath John’s hand, tender to the touch when John ghosts a palm over the marks. A beautiful thing, to have Laszlo so vulnerable, pinked and alight with sensation and scrabbling with his left hand for something, anything, to hold on to.

“Laszlo – _count_.”

“Six.” Bitten out between gritted teeth.

He gasps and shivers and shudders beneath John’s hand, stumbling on ‘seven’, choking on a sound that might be ‘eight’. The proud, stubborn body bows and burns and scatters in shards upon the writing desk – head bent low, the muscles in Laszlo’s shoulders quivering.

“Laszlo.”

This is Kreizler undone. Almost perfection. Almost the euphoria he sought – the submission he had asked John to wring from him. They are close. So close. John feels the rhythm of it thrumming in his blood, in the pulse that beats heady in his ears.

 _Is this what you wanted, Laszlo_?

The air in the study is humid, stifling, and John guides his hand around Laszlo’s front, down the quavering plane of his belly and between the taut muscles of his thighs. Laszlo curls around his hand, shrinking, crumpling – the arousal flaccid between his legs.

And John has gotten it all so very, very wrong.

Nervy with adrenaline – fairly vibrating with the energy that jitters in his blood – John is suddenly sharply aware of the ragged drag of air against his lung, of the broken, shuddering breaths that gasp from Laszlo’s slack mouth.

“Finish it.” The slip of silk tied around Laszlo’s eyes is blotted with damp, tear-stained patches. “John… What are you –?” He squirms, breathless; pinned between John and the expanse of the desk, the demand tangled up in his musical accent, in the thickness of tears that gather at the back of his throat. “You can’t stop!”

John hears the catch in his voice. The panic. _Oh, Laszlo – Laszlo, you damned fool_. And John himself is more the fool for letting himself be pulled into this scheme in the first place, for letting it go this far, for thinking this could happen. “Damn it, Laszlo, we’ll stop if I say we should!” And he takes him by the shoulders hard enough to bruise, spins him around so that they are face-to-blindfolded-face; the brush of Laszlo’s singing, reddened skin against the edges of the desk makes him hiss. “Look at you,” John gentles his grip, feels the way Laszlo flinches and trembles, the way the stifled sobs seize in his chest.

Laszlo’s mouth works, the cupid’s bow of his lips forming silent, helpless sounds. “I – John, I… The experiment – you were supposed to keep going…”

“Damn your experiment.”

And John fumbles for the blindfold, slips it up and away from those devastated, wet eyes, gathering Kreizler’s face in the cradle of his palms. His eyes are terribly, frighteningly vacant – lost to the middle distance, to something old and faraway. John hesitates to touch. Draws the pads of his thumbs carefully beneath Laszlo’s eyelashes to smooth away the tears.

“Laszlo,” he brushes fingers through the soft, sweaty fall of the alienist’s hair. His own voice trembles, matches the shocks of violent shivering that wrack Laszlo’s sturdy frame when he gathers him close. “Laszlo. _Laszlo_ – why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“It doesn’t matter.” The words are choked-out, bitten-off. And Laszlo struggles against him, already retreating into himself, throwing up the old and well-worn defenses. Furious and ruined, his face crumpled, his breath high and ragged in his chest. “It doesn’t—”

“It does matter, Laszlo.” John wants to shake him. Wants to take him into his arms and cradle him close and soothe the hurts he’s dealt. “It _does_.”

“ _You’ve ruined the experiment_ ,” Laszlo snaps, shoving ineffectually at John even as his breath hitches on the ragged catch of a sob. “There’s no point.”

“Damn it all, Laszlo, there is a point!” And John ducks down, trying to catch those elusive, haunted eyes as his voice breaks. “I’ve _hurt_ you.”

“That…” Laszlo swallows hard. Fights against the rising squeeze of hyperventilation in the column of his throat. “That was the point, John.”

“No.” And John gathers him close, tucks the trembling, naked figure beneath his chin and wraps him tightly in his arms, trailing the knuckles of his right hand down the knobs of Laszlo’s vertebrae. “No,” he breathes. “Not like that. There’s a difference between pain for pleasure and out-and-out abuse, Laszlo. I’m sorry. Laszlo, I’m so sorry.”

Laszlo shudders against his chest, the fingers of his good hand knotting themselves in the fabric of John’s waistcoat. And John fumbles to hold him, searches with one hand for the chair behind him and finds the thin afghan draped across it’s back. John wraps it around Laszlo’s bare shoulders, shielding him, shushing him, and bears him up when he sags, when his legs threaten to give way beneath him, holds him fast and rocks him gently through his silent sobs.

“John.” Laszlo’s voice is thick, his voice muffled against the damp patch of John’s shirtfront. “John – I – this wasn’t your fault.”

John feels the shifting of his shoulders through the afghan, the way Laszlo braces himself for his response. “What do you mean? Laszlo – how could it possibly not be my fault?” I didn’t notice I was _hurting_ you _._ “I just tanned your backside until you _wept_.”

And Laszlo – still trembling – peels himself away from John, reaches up to grasp the corners of the blanket and draw it around himself. Protecting. “It…” He does not look John in the eye. “That was not because of you, John.”

“What are you talking about?” John insists, running a hand through his short, bedraggled hair. “Of course it was because of—”

Laszlo rolls his shoulders – the one higher than the other – cutting John off with a gulp of air as he lets the words fall free in a musical, shamed tumble. “As a child, I was often put over my father’s knee or caned for minor misbehaviors. I… was not prepared, when you pushed me over the desk. It recalled many unpleasant memories.”

John watches as Laszlo’s good hand creeps around to clutch at his too-thin wrist, kneading at the emaciated flesh of his ruined arm. Oh, Laszlo. Stubborn, proud, frustrating Laszlo. “Why didn’t you _say_ something?”

“The less I reacted, the more quickly the beatings would be over.” Laszlo shrugs. “If I did not react, it was less satisfying for Papi to hit me.”

Stoic as Laszlo is now, his cheeks still glisten with tear tracks, and the frank confession twists like a knife between John’s third and fourth ribs. A sharp knife stuck directly into his aching heart. “Laszlo, if I’d known –”

“There’s no point, John.” He shakes his head once, firmly, studying the patterns in the carpet as he draws the afghan tighter around his bare, slumped shoulders. “The experiment is ruined – there isn’t any point now.”

“Who’s to say?” John startles at the bloom of brightness behind his sternum, the patter of his heart that demands _let me fix this. Let me show you something better._ “You’re chasing your patient’s euphoria – the overwhelming of the senses they feel brought about by discipline and domination.” John takes his face in his hands, speaking quickly before he can think of the hundred-thousand reasons why they shouldn’t be doing this, why he should not be suggesting this. “Let me give you that _without_ hurting you.”

This time Laszlo lifts his eyes to meet John’s questioning gaze, a faint startled frown leaving his stubborn features open. Unguarded. “I don’t—”

“You trusted me, Laszlo.” And John finds himself leaning in, gravitating into the small space between them. “Will you let me do this? I’ll show you.” His voice is ragged, gravel-rough. “I’ll show you – you can submit. You can have your euphoria. And you won’t have to hurt.”

Just a hair’s breadth between them.

Laszlo nods.

John kisses him. A slow, careful kiss that tastes of saline – sweat and tears – the brush of Laszlo’s beard against his cheek, the softness of that hesitant cupid’s bow mouth beneath his own. And Laszlo yields. Opens up to him with a fragile sigh that John wants to capture forever. His good hand, all long delicate fingers, reaches up to ghost along the line of John’s jaw. The afghan falls away from his shoulders.

And John pulls away.

“In the chair, Laszlo. Sit.”

There is no small amount of wincing when Laszlo does so, shifting and squirming as he perches himself uneasily on the upholstered cushions, his reddened skin still stinging. Watching Laszlo squirm, John feels his heart rising in his throat – swelling with affection, with anxious swarms of doubt. As far as they have already gone, this will be a new and far more dangerous step altogether.

Laszlo trusts him.

John would do anything for him.

Crossing the study, he sinks in one smooth movement to his knees between Kreizler’s bare, slender legs. Even kneeling, staring up at Laszlo, the alienist seems incredibly small. Vulnerable. All of his barriers have been broken down, all of his defenses stripped away. His eyes shine – curious. Locked on John.

And John hooks his deft, blunt fingers around Laszlo’s slim ankles – skates his palms up the backs of his calves as he leans in. “That euphoria you asked for? It is mine to give you, Laszlo.” John smooths a kiss against the inner knob of his knee. “You’ll have to ask me for it.”

Before Laszlo can gather his wits about him and twist and turn his words under the microscope of psychoanalysis, can question what John means by that, he sets about his efforts – trailing meandering kisses up Laszlo’s thighs. All stubble-scrape and the light tease of teeth and the hint of bruises kissed into the skin.

Laszlo _gasps_. A beautiful, desperate sound – so unlike the wounded noises he’d made, bent double over the great mahogany desk. His thighs slacken, fall open wider; and John kisses his way upward, and Laszlo’s fingernails claw at the arms of plush chair.

“Oh.” Quiet, caught in the back of Laszlo’s throat. “ _Oh_.”

The sound pierces John, sears deep in his groin. “Tell me what you want, Laszlo.” He drags his lips over the quivering of Laszlo’s belly, rises up off his knees and slips a hand between them to tease the stiffening of Laszlo’s cock.

“Touch me.” The plea escapes on a gasp. “Kiss me. Please.”

John obliges. Laszlo kisses artlessly, hungrily. He tastes of salt and coffee and faint, bitter warmth. And John slots their bodies together, slides against the supple, trembling figure in the armchair as Laszlo’s good hand winds its way into the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

“No.” John stills.

Laszlo’s eyes are blown wide – the deep brown of his irises subsumed by hungry pupils – his chest heaving, delicate nostrils flared. Whole body straining. John might imagine the sound, but when he takes a measured step back, Laszlo whimpers with the loss.

“You asked to submit, Laszlo,” John reminds him. “Keep your hands on the armrests and don’t move them – show me how good you can be. Let me take care of you.”

White-knuckled, Laszlo digs his fingers into the upholstery. His whole body quivers, the muscles in his jaw working soundlessly.

“It’s all right,” John reassures him, dotting a kiss to the edge of his mouth – brushing his cheek against the softness of Laszlo’s beard before he finds the vulnerable, tender pulse point beneath his ear. “It’s all right. I have you.” He skims his palms up gasping ribs, feels Laszlo hard and writhing against him. Pinches a rose-pink nipple into painful, pebbled hardness.

And Laszlo groans, knocks his skull against the back of the chair. Nearly tears holes in the armrests trying to keep a handhold – to keep from reaching, from touching.

John rocks against him, presses into him, moves them with a heart-stuttering, blood-rushing rhythm that drives the armchair back in inches across the carpet, tips it up onto the low back legs so that they teeter together for a moment. And he loves. He loves. _Oh, Laszlo. What have you done to me_?

Laszlo sobs. A desperate sound. “John.”

Neither one of them will last.

“Ask me.”

“John, _please_.”

And John draws himself up, says in the humid breath of space between his lips and Laszlo’s ear, stirring the curl of his sweaty hair “anything for you.”

Laszlo undone is a sight that should be captured in oils. The moment preserved forever. Hung in a gallery – it is a masterpiece. Laszlo a work of art. Sweaty and slack-limbed with his eyes burning fever-brilliant and John’s name on his lips.

John follows him over the edge into his own euphoria – melting against Laszlo, mingling salt-sweat and tears and release. He kisses affections into Laszlo’s burning skin, cradles his limp head and presses their foreheads together, breathing in the soft sighs between them.

When he regains enough of his senses, enough breath to move, he mourns the loss – shushes Laszlo’s wounded, troubled noises. “Just a moment. I’m not going far.” He fishes a handkerchief from the pocket of his suit coat, bundles up the afghan from its discarded heap on the floor. His limbs are heavy, sluggish. More sated than he has been in a long time.

He manages a cursory cleaning of the worst of their mess, doesn’t have the mental capacity to worry about things like later and cleaning up the evidence. Laszlo is boneless in the armchair, silent and sleepy-eyed and looking for all the world as though he has just availed himself of a touch too much of laudanum. John wraps him in the afghan, tucks it tight around his shoulders, and resettles both of them in the chair, Laszlo’s legs draped across his knees, the alienist’s head tucked beneath his chin.

Laszlo curls against him so close, presses so tightly against him, it seems he is trying to crawl inside and share John’s skin. One hand worms its way free of the blanket, finds the fingers that idly stroke along his damaged arm.

John breathes slowly, watches Laszlo’s dark head rise and fall against his chest.

And then, like surfacing from a dream – like breaking from beneath the surface of the lakes – Laszlo lifts his head. Focuses his eyes on John, blinking away the dreamy softness. The keen brightness of the alienist, the genius settles slowly back into place. “I think,” Laszlo murmurs, testing the words “the experiment was a success.” And, with the slightest of smiles, he presses a kiss to the curve of John’s jaw. “It will need replicating of course.”

John cannot help himself. He laughs – a low, delighted huff. “Of course.”


End file.
